http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c86d5rqx No online items

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid

Finding aid prepared by Peter J. Westwick, November 11, 2009. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Manuscripts Department 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2129 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org © 2009 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved.

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid mssRich papers 1 Overview of the Collection Title: Ben R. Rich Papers Dates (inclusive): 1940-1995 Collection Number: mssRich papers Creator: Rich, Ben R. Extent: Approximately 1,000 items. 13 boxes. Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Manuscripts Department 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2129 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org Abstract: This collection contains the papers of aerospace engineer Ben Rich (1925-1995), who served as the second director of Lockheed's Skunk Works in Southern California and was involved in the development of the F-117 stealth aircraft. The papers date from the 1940s to the early 1990s. Language: English. Access Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services. Publication Rights The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher. Preferred Citation [Identification of item]. Ben R. Rich Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Provenance Gift of Michael and Karen Rich, July 15, 2008. Related material in the Huntington Library Some books that came with the collection have been added to the Huntington Library reference collection; searching under Ben Rich in the library catalog will retrieve these items. The following books represent an incomplete list: • Roy Blay, ed., Lockheed Horizons, no. 12 (Burbank, CA, 1983) • Roy Blay, ed., Lockheed Horizons, no. 27 (Calabasas, CA, 1988) • Walter J. Boyne, The Smithsonian Book of Flight (Washington, DC, 1987) • Clyde W. Burleson, The Jennifer Project (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1977) • Paul F. Crickmore, Lockheed R-71 Blackbird (London, 1987) • Paul F. Crickmore, Lockheed SR-71: The Secret Missions Exposed (London, 1993) • Thomas J. Doubek, ed., Strategic Reconnaissance 1956-1976: A History of the 4080th/100th SRW (Dallas, TX, 1976.) • Lou Drendel, SR-71 Blackbird in Action (Carrollton, TX, 1982) • Jim Goodall, F-117 Stealth in Action (Carrollton, TX, 1991) • James C. Goodall, America’s Stealth Fighters and Bombers (Osceola, WI, 1992) • Richard P. Hallion, Designers and Test Pilots (Alexandria, VA, 1983) • Lockheed Aircraft, Days of Trial and Triumph:A Pictorial History of Lockheed (Burbank, CA, 1969) • Lockheed Aircraft, Dateline Lockheed (Burbank, CA, 1982) • Robert and Melinda Macy, Destination Baghdad (Las Vegas, NV, 1991) • Mark Meyer and Chuck Yeager, Wings (Charlottesville, VA, 1984) • Jay Miller, Lockheed U-2 (Austin, TX, 1983) • Jay Miller, Lockheed’s Skunk Works: The First Fifty Years (Arlington, TX, 1993)

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid mssRich papers 2 • Michael O’Leary, Fighting Lightnings: The Complete Story of Lockheed’s Fabulous P-38 Lightning During World War Two (Canoga Park, CA, 1988) • Steve Pace, Lockheed Skunk Works (Osceola, WI, 1992) • Chris Pocock, Dragon Lady: The History of the U-2 Spyplane (Shrewsbury, UK, 1989) • John Riley, ed., Alcoa and Aerospace, 1888-1988, vol. 8, Alcoa Technology Report, Feb 1989 (Pittsburgh, PA) • Brian Shul, Sled Driver: Flying the World’s Fastest Jet (Chico, CA, 1991) • Bill Sweetman, Stealth Aircraft (Osceola, WI, 1986) • Bill Sweetman and James Goodall, Lockheed F-117A: Operation and Development of the Stealth Fighter (Osceola, WI, 1990) • Bill Sweetman, Aurora: The Pentagon’s Secret Hypersonic Spyplane (Osceola, WI, 1993) • William Wagner, Lightning Bugs and Other Reconnaissance Drones (Fallbrook, CA, 1982) • Bill Yenne, Lockheed (Greenwich, CT 1987). Biographical Note Ben Robert Rich (1925-1995) was born as Ben Reich in Manila, in the Philippines, on June 18, 1925. He was the second youngest of six children of Jewish middle-class parents. His British father was born in India, his French mother in Egypt. He came to the U.S. in May 1941 with his family and changed his last name to Rich when he was naturalized as a US citizen, in 1947. His father lost his Manila lumber mill to the Japanese invasion, and the family struggled financially through the war in the U.S. Rich worked as a machinist during the war and started college at war’s end at UCLA before transferring his senior year to Berkeley. He received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley in 1949 and an M.S. in mechanical engineering from UCLA in 1950. On June 25, 1950 he married Faye Mayer; they had two children, Michael (b. 1953) and Karen (b. 1956). Rich joined Lockheed in 1950 as a design specialist in thermodynamics, aerodynamics, and propulsion, working on the F-94, F-90, C-130, and F-104 aircraft. In 1955 he joined Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects, also known as the Skunk Works, a group formed by Clarence “Kelly” Johnson in the 1940s. As a senior design specialist he worked on the U-2 aircraft and, from 1956 to 1958, helped design the CL-400, a reconnaissance plane for the secret Air Force program known as Project Suntan, to develop liquid hydrogen as aircraft fuel. He then worked on what became known as the SR-71 aircraft, a Mach 3 high-altitude reconnaissance plane; in particular he helped solve difficult aerodynamic and thermodynamic problems on the SR-71 engine inlets. Rich earned promotion to more senior engineering and managing positions, and upon Johnson’s retirement in 1975 Rich became head of the Skunk Works. His most notable achievement was supervising the development of Stealth technology, for low radar signatures, incorporated on the F-117A aircraft. He was known for his genial management style and his enthusiastic salesmanship, leavening briefings with mischievous jokes and anecdotes. He retired on December 31, 1990. Much of his career at the Skunk Works involved highly classified projects, but as these projects were declassified Rich gained public notice and acclaim. He published his memoirs, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed, co-authored with Leo Janos, in 1994. Rich died January 5, 1995, of cancer. His first wife Faye died in 1980; in 1982 he married Hilda Herman. His son Michael received a law degree and became a senior executive at the RAND Corporation; his daughter Karen is a botanist at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Scope and Content This collection contains the papers of aerospace engineer Ben Rich (1925-1995), who served as the second director of Lockheed's Skunk Works in Southern California and was involved in the development of the F-117 stealth aircraft. The collection contains approximately 1,000 items and has been organized by subject, although some subjects can be found throughout the collection. Chronological coverage is from the 1950s to 1990s; much material is from the 1980s and early 1990s, save for selected documents and the Technical Notes and Data series from the 1950s. The files contain many clippings and speeches; there is relatively little daily correspondence, except for scattered letters in the Personal and Projects series. The Technical Notes and Data series contains binders of detailed lecture notes, handwritten calculations, technical articles, data tables, and graphs. This material is from the mid to late 1950s, when Rich was working on the U-2, SR-71, and other reconnaissance aircraft. Much of the collection otherwise involves few technical details, except for a few technical articles under Publications and a few blueprints under Projects. There is a separate series for Rich’s memoir, Skunk Works. This includes research material, draft chapters, published reviews and private feedback, discussion of potential co-authors, and classification issues. Talks are filed by subject and date in the Speeches series. Photos have been organized in a separate series; these include images of various aircraft, Lockheed events, and portraits of Rich at various phases of his career. Many photos are unlabeled. An Oversize series

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid mssRich papers 3 includes large photos and binders of notes from his retirement events. Articles on particular aircraft are filed under the Projects series instead of Publications. For Projects, note that aircraft often had different designations at different times. The D- 21 drone was also known as Q-12 and Tagboard. The A-12 was also called Oxcart, A-11, F-12, R-12, and SR-71. The CL-400 started under Project Suntan. Project names mentioned for Stealth aircraft, what became the F-117A, include XST (Experimental Stealth Testbed), Harvey, Have Blue, Tacit Gold, Girlfriend, and Boyfriend. A Stealth cruise missile program was known as Senior High and Senior Prom (the Kelly Johnson folder includes a small card with the note, “I bet Ben on Prom launch, my $5.00 vs this quarter May 17 ‘80—I won”). The Sea Shadow project, for Stealth ships, is referred to elsewhere in the files by the name of Ugo Coty, who was Lockheed manager for Navy programs. Similarly, initial plans for a Trans Atmospheric Vehicle in the early 1980s referred to a single-stage-to-orbit reconnaissance aircraft designed to make a couple orbits and then land on an airstrip. This concept then shifted to the National Aerospace Plane, or NASP, which was sometimes conflated with, sometimes differentiated from the Orient Express. The SR-71 folder includes material linking SR-71 design concepts to NASP (and its predecessor, the SST); since some NASP designs contemplated liquid-hydrogen fuel they also drew on CL-400 experience. Also, in addition to the “Projects—Cost” file, there is cost information in the files for particular projects. There are a few items of particular interest. The F-117 file includes an “XST log” by Rich, with brief entries describing the development of Stealth on an almost daily basis from March 1975 through December 1977. Similar logs or handwritten histories are in the folders for the D-21 drone and Senior Prom cruise missile. The Kelly Johnson file includes the document “Sighting of a flying saucer by certain Lockheed Aircraft Corporation personnel on 16 December 1953.” “Lockheed in 1951,” in Speeches, describes the increase of women in the workforce owing to the Korean War buildup; there is also some discussion of women in the military in the Sheila Widnall speeches in the file for ProjectsDefense Planning. The collection included cassette tapes of several interviews and two DVDs: “Blackbird: the Movie,” and “Ben Rich: Father of the Stealth Fighter.” The interviews will be transcribed and listed in the Huntington catalog. The collection also includes ephemera, such as trophies and plaques, which have been omitted. The technical notes also included a well-worn copy of Ralph G. Hudson, The engineers’ manual, 2nd edition (New York, 1945), likewise omitted. Arrangement The collection is arranged in the following series: • Personal (Box 1) • Projects (Boxes 2-3) • Speeches (Box 4) • Lockheed (Box 5) • Publications (Box 5) • Memoirs (Box 6) • Technical notes and data (Boxes 7-10) • Photographs (Box 11) • and Oversize/Ephemera (Boxes 12-13) Indexing Terms The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Huntington Library's Online Catalog. Subjects Rich, Ben R. -- Archives. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. A-12 Blackbird (Jet reconnaissance plane) Aerodynamics. Aeronautical engineers -- United States -- Archives. Aeronautics -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Sources. Aerospace engineering -- United States. Aerospace engineers -- United States. Aerospace industries -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Sources. Aerothermodynamics. Aircraft industry -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Sources. Airplanes -- Design and construction.

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid mssRich papers 4 Airplanes, Military. Engineering -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Sources. Engineers -- United States. F-117 (Jet attack plane) Fighter planes. High-speed aeronautics. Jet planes, Military. Lockheed aircraft. Reconnaissance aircraft. SR-71 Blackbird (Jet reconnaissance plane) Stealth aircraft. Supersonic planes. Transonic planes. U-2 (Reconnaissance aircraft) California -- History -- 20th century -- Sources. Forms/Genres Articles -- United States -- 20th century. Clippings -- United States -- 20th century. Documents -- United States -- 20th century. Ephemera -- United States -- 20th century. Photocopies -- United States -- 20th century. Photographs -- United States -- 20th century. Slides (photographs) -- United States -- 20th century. Videodiscs (video recording disks) -- United States -- 20th century.

Box 1 Personal Information on Rich’s career, affiliations, awards, retirement, and correspondence from selected years and individuals.

Folder 1 Awards Folder 2 Biographical Folder 3 Career Folder 4 Chron file, Jan-June 1993 Folder 5 Chron file, July-Dec 1993 Folder 6 Lyman Gilmore Folder 7 Clarence “Kelly” Johnson Folder 8 Miscellaneous Folder 9 Organizations—AIAA Folder 10 Organizations—National Academy of Engineering Folder 11 Patents Folder 12 Retirement—parties Folder 13 Retirement—letters Folder 14 Security clearance Folder 15 Travel, 1990 Projects Information on individual aircraft and issues of cost and planning. The aircraft include the U-2, A-12/SR-71, CL-400 (hydrogen-fueled), and F-117 (Stealth). Other projects include Stealth technology applied to ships (Sea Shadow) and cruise missiles (Senior Prom).

Box 2 Projects Folder 1 Engineering—U-2

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid mssRich papers 5 Projects

Folder 2 Engineering A-12 Folder 3 Engineering—A-12 schematics Folder 4 Engineering—F-12 Folder 5 Engineering—R-12 schematics Folder 6 Engineering—SR-71 Folder 7 Engineering—SR-71 pilot experience Folder 8 Engineering—D-21 Folder 9 Engineering—CL-1981 (low-cost fighter, 1974) Folder 10 Engineering—F-117A Folder 11 Engineering—F-22 Folder 12 Engineering—X-29 Box 3 Projects Folder 1 Engineering—CL-400 Folder 2 Engineering—CL-400 reports (1973) Folder 3 Engineering—CL-400, Langley meeting (1973) Folder 4 Engineering—Sea Shadow (stealth ship) Folder 5 Engineering—Senior Prom Folder 6 Engineering—Aeroballistic rocket (low cost access to space, 1993) Folder 7 Cost issues Folder 8 Defense planning Folder 9 Miscellaneous performance charts Box 4 Speeches Copies of Ben Rich speeches from 1967 to 1992, on individual aircraft and on the Skunk Works.

Folder 1 Miscellaneous Folder 2 SR-71/SST, 1967 Folder 3 CL-400, 1973 Folder 4 CL-400, 1974 Folder 5 SR-71, 1977 Folder 6 “Lockheed in 1951,” 1976 Folder 7 “The Big Step” (Kelly Johnson philosophy), 1978 Folder 8 Future of supersonics, 1978 Folder 9 SR-71 and SST, Feb 1980 Folder 10 “Mach 3 flight in retrospect,” Mar 1980 Folder 11 U-2, SR-71, and CL-400, Apr 1983 Folder 12 “Survivable reconnaissance in the 1990s,” July 1983 Folder 13 U-2, SR-71, and CL-400, Sep 1983 Folder 14 Aircraft development in the Skunk Works, 1984 Folder 15 U-2, SR-71, and CL-400, 1985 Folder 16 Transatmospheric Vehicle (Orient Express), Jan 1986 Folder 17 Supersonic/hypersonic transport aircraft, Oct 1986 Folder 18 Pratt & Whitney and the Skunk Works, 1987 Folder 19 Skunk Works history and overview, March 1988 Folder 20 Skunk Works history and overview, June 1988 Folder 21 SR-71 retirement ceremony, 1990 Folder 22 U-2, SR-71, and F-117, April 1990 Folder 23 U-2, SR-71, and F-117, May 1990 Folder 24 Retirement, 1991 Folder 25 “Lockheed Skunk Works from 1954 to 1991,” 1992 Box 5 Lockheed; Publications

Lockheed History and management of Lockheed and the Skunk Works.

Folder 1 History

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid mssRich papers 6 Lockheed; Publications Lockheed

Folder 2 Legal Folder 3 Skunk Works—history and operations Folder 4 Skunk Works—name and trademark Folder 5 Skunk Works—management briefings, 1990-1992

Publications Articles by and about Ben Rich, and miscellaneous articles.

Folder 6 Articles by Ben Rich Folder 7 Articles about Ben Rich Folder 8 Glenn Campbell, “Area 51 Viewer’s Guide” Folder 9 Lockheed newsletters Folder 10 Miscellaneous technical articles Box 6 Memoirs; Consulting

Memoirs Drafts, research material, and correspondence relating to Ben Rich and Leo Janos, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed (1994).

Folder 1 Book reviews Folder 2 Chapter drafts Folder 3 Corrections and revisions Folder 4 Draft materials Folder 5 Leo Janos Folder 6 Potential co-authors Folder 7 Research correspondence Folder 8 Security clearance

Consulting Information on Ben Rich’s various consulting jobs, mostly from the 1990s after his retirement.

Folder 9 Ames Research Center Folder 10 California-Israel Committee for Trade and Technology Folder 11 Defense Science Board Folder 12 GEC-Marconi Folder 13 Litton Folder 14 Lockheed (post-retirement) Folder 15 Miscellaneous Folder 16 Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Technical Notes and Data Ben Rich’s technical notebooks and binders from the 1950s on thermodynamics and aerodynamics, and an extended series of lectures from a F-104 pilot’s manual.

Box 7 Technical Notes and Data Folder 1 Aerodynamics Folder 2 Propulsion (turbojet) Box 8 Folder 1 Thermodynamics, vol I Folder 2 Thermodynamics, vol. III Folder 3 Thermal properties of materials Box 9 Technical Notes and Data Folder 1 Aerodynamics and thermodynamics Box 10 Technical Notes and Data Folder 1 Hypersonic aerodynamics

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid mssRich papers 7 Technical Notes and Data

Folder 2 SURE lectures (F-104 pilot’s guide, by G.L. Reaves) [1 of 3 folders] Folder 3 SURE lectures (F-104 pilot’s guide, by G.L. Reaves) [2 of 3 folders] Folder 4 SURE lectures (F-104 pilot’s guide, by G.L. Reaves) [3 of 3 folders] Box 11 Photographs Candid and formal photos of Ben Rich, Lockheed airplanes, and events.

Folder 1 Ben Rich portraits and head shots Folder 2 Events and candids (large prints) Folder 3 Events and candids (small prints) Folder 4 Ben Rich and President Reagan Folder 5 Kelly Johnson and President Reagan Folder 6 Collier Trophy ceremony Folder 7 Ben Rich retirement party, Jan 1991 Folder 8 U-2 Folder 9 SR-71 Folder 10 SR-71 retirement Folder 11 F-117 Folder 12 F-22 Folder 13 Miscellaneous Lockheed projects Folder 14 Hughes H-4 (Spruce Goose) Oversize/Ephemera Includes large photos and certificates, binder of photos from Skunk Works field operations, binder of well-wisher cards from retirement party and various other ephemeral items.

Box 12 Oversize/Ephemera Folder 1 Binder of photos from Skunk Works field operations Folder 2 Binder of cards from retirement party Folder 3 Four cassette tapes Folder 4 Two DVDs: Blackbird: The Movie and Ben Rich: Father of the Stealth-Fighter. Folder 5 Ben Rich work badge Box 13 Oversize/Ephemera Folder 1 Miscellaneous large photos and certificates (including 3 rolled)

Ben R. Rich Papers: Finding Aid mssRich papers 8